KYAMBOGO UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF SCIENCE

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY

PROGRAMME: BACHELOR OF SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY- CHEMISTRY

YEAR OF STUDY: THREE SEMESTER: TWO

COURSE UNIT: SST 3203: CERAMIC, CEMENT AND GLASS TECHNOLOGY

LECTURER’S NAME: MR. MUKOTA AZIZ

TASK: ASSIGNMENT

NAME: LUMANYIKA EDRINE

REG NO: 20/U/CTD/11286/GV

Question 1

a)

Diammonium Phosphate (DAP)

Monoammonium Phosphate (MAP)

Single Super Phosphate (SSP)

Differences

Basis of comparison DAP MAP SSP

pH for dissolution 7.5 3.5 1-1.5

Major Composition 18% Nitrogen and 12% Nitrogen and Phosphorous,

46% phosphorous 61% phosphorous Sulphur and calcium

b)

Available phosphate

Available phosphate means the sum of the water soluble and citrate soluble phosphate.

On a fertilizer label, P2O5 is listed as “available phosphate.” The sum of the water-soluble
and citrate-soluble phosphate is considered to be the amount of phosphate available to the
plant, and is the amount guaranteed on the fertilizer label.

Bone phosphate of lime

Bone phosphate of lime is a calcium salt of phosphoric acid with the chemical
formula Ca3(PO4)2.

It is also known as tribasic calcium phosphate and Tricalcium phosphate (sometimes

abbreviated TCP). It is a white solid of low solubility. Most commercial samples of
"tricalcium phosphate" are in fact hydroxyapatite.
It exists as three crystalline polymorphs α, α′, and β. The α and α′ states are stable at high
temperatures.

Acidulation

The process of treating a fertilizer source with an acid.

The most common process is treatment of phosphate rock with an acid (or mixture of acids)
such as sulfuric, nitric, or phosphoric acid.

Ca3(PO4)2(s) + 3H2SO4(l) --> 2H3PO4(l) + 3CaSO4(s)

Beneficiation

Beneficiation is the technical term describing the industrial process of mechanically

separating minerals from each other.

No chemical changes to the minerals are made at this point in the mining process.

c)

Though chemical fertilizers are the major cause of sufficient crop production for the world
population, their overuse is bringing serious challenges to the present and future generations
like polluted air, water, and soil, the degraded lands, depleted soils and increased emissions
of greenhouse gases.

Chemical Fertilizers on Water Pollution

Leaching, drainage or surface flow, for example, in most cultivated upland soils, mineral N is
likely to be oxidized to nitrate due to microbial activity. As a result, relatively high fractions
of the applied N may potentially be leached or removed from the root zone into the surface
and groundwater.

Major deleterious effect of the intensive use of fertilizers (mainly nitrogen and phosphorus) is
water eutrophication. The primary factor responsible for eutrophication is phosphate.
Eutrophication result in increased growth of aquatic plants and algae in the water body
covering the whole water body leading to the loss of other aquatic living species like fishes
due to the reduced oxygen supply.
Chemical Fertilizers on Air Pollution

High application rates of chemical fertilizer for enhancing crop production is generating
numerous harmful greenhouse gases, depleting the protective ozone layer hence exposing the
humans to harmful ultraviolet rays.

Chemical Fertilizer on Soil Pollution

The over-use of chemical fertilizers can lead to soil acidification and soil crust thereby
reducing organic matter content, humus content, beneficial organisms, stunting plant growth,
can change the soil pH, increase pests, and even contribute to the release of greenhouse gases.

Repeated applications of chemical fertilizer may result in a toxic buildup of heavy metals
such as arsenic, cadmium, and uranium in the soil. These toxic heavy metals not only pollute
the soil but also get accumulated in food grains, fruits and vegetables.

Question 2

a)

The float glass manufacture process includes the following stages:

Stage 1: Melting and refining

Fine-grained ingredients, closely controlled for quality, are mixed to make batch, which
flows as a blanket on to molten glass at 1,500°C in the melter.

Float makes glass of near optical quality. Several processes – melting, refining,
homogenising – take place simultaneously in the 2,000 tonnes of molten glass in the furnace.
They occur in separate zones in a complex glass flow driven by high temperatures. It adds up
to a continuous melting process, lasting as long as 50 hours, that delivers glass at 1,100°C,
free from inclusions and bubbles, smoothly and continuously to the float bath. The melting
process is key to glass quality; and compositions can be modified to change the properties of
the finished product.

Stage 2: Float bath

Glass from the melter flows gently over a refractory spout on to the mirror-like surface of
molten tin, starting at 1,100°C and leaving the float bath as a solid ribbon at 600°C.
Stage 3: Coating

Coatings that make profound changes in optical properties can be applied by advanced high
temperature technology to the cooling ribbon of glass.

On-line chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of coatings is the most significant advance in the
float process since it was invented. CVD can be used to lay down a variety of coatings, less
than a micron thick, to reflect visible and infrared wavelengths, for instance. Multiple
coatings can be deposited in the few seconds available as the glass ribbon flows beneath the
coaters. Further development of the CVD process may well replace changes in composition
as the principal way of varying the optical properties of float glass.

Stage 4: Annealing

Despite the tranquillity with which float glass is formed, considerable stresses are developed
in the ribbon as it cools.

Too much stress and the glass will break beneath the cutter. To relieve these stresses, the
ribbon undergoes heat-treatment in a long furnace known as a lehr. Temperatures are closely
controlled both along and across the ribbon. Pilkington has developed technology which
automatically feeds back stress levels in the glass to control the temperatures in the lehr.

Stage 5: Inspection

The float process is renowned for making perfectly flat, flaw-free glass. But to ensure the
highest quality, inspection takes place at every stage.

Occasionally a bubble is not removed during refining, a sand grain refuses to melt, a tremor
in the tin puts ripples into the glass ribbon. Automated on-line inspection does two things. It
reveals process faults upstream that can be corrected. And it enables computers downstream
to steer cutters round flaws. Flaws imply wastage; while customers press constantly for
greater perfection. Inspection technology now allows more than 100 million measurements a
second to be made across the ribbon, locating flaws the unaided eye would be unable to see.
The data drives ‘intelligent’ cutters, further improving product quality to the customer.

Stage 6: Cutting to order

Diamond wheels trim off selvedge - stressed edges - and cut the ribbon to size dictated by
computer.

Float glass is sold by the square metre. Computers translate customers’ requirements into
patterns of cuts designed to minimise wastage. Increasingly, electronic systems integrate the
operation of manufacturing plants with the order book.

Glass forming techniques

Casting
This process involved the shaping of molten glass in a closed mould or over an open former.
The earliest use of casting is found in the production of mosaic glass vessels during the Late
Bronze Age.

They were made by fusing together thin slices of coloured glass made from canes. In the Iron
Age, when translucent monochrome or colourless glass became popular, a simpler method
was used for making open-shaped vessels, whereby the hot glass was sagged over a former.
Closed vessels, on the other hand, were probably cast using the lost-wax technique. A mould
was made by creating a wax or wax-coated model of the object to be produced. The model
was enveloped in clay or plaster and then baked, so that the wax melted, leaving a mould into
which molten or, more probably, powdered glass could be poured.

After casting, the vessels were allowed to cool, and then they were usually cut and ground
into their final form.

Blowing
The discovery of glass-blowing occurred slightly before the middle of the first century BC in
the Syro-Palestinian region of the Near East. It was, however, not until the use of a hollow
metal blow-pipe became accepted practice (probably in the last quarter of the first century
BC) that the invention was fully appreciated. The combination of the blow-pipe and the
knowledge of inflation revolutionised the glass industry, enabling craftsmen to make vessels
more quickly, at less expense and in a greater variety of shapes.

Core-forming
The earliest method of making glass vessels is known as core-forming. Small containers were
produced by trailing molten glass over a shaped, clay core fashioned on the end of a metal
rod. Upon completion, the rod was removed, the vessel annealed (gradually cooled), and the
clay core scraped out. The Erimtan Collection contains only one example of a core-formed
vessel. It represents one of the last types made by using the technique.

b)

The effect of Na2O addition to silica is shown in figure below. The addition of Na2O
produces eutectics with very low melting temperature .

Figure 1: the SiO2-Na2O phase diagram

Addition of soda (Na2O) to silica dramatically reduce the melting temperature of silica by
forming eutectics.

Silica has a melting temperature of 1700oC. This is considerably higher than the temperatures
that are possible with charcoal and the blow pipe (800- 1200) 0C. But on addition of sodium
oxide, things change drastically as sodium bonds to the silicon atom breaking the ordered
network of silicon resulting in the shortening of bond length which reduces the melting
temperatures to around 1000oC which is possible to reach with charcoal and a blow pipe.
REFERENCES

Mais abdul Rahman (2019). Lecture of Glass.

https://uomustansiriyah.edu.iq/media/lectures/5/5_2020.

PILKINGTON notes for glass technology.

Chandini, Randeep kumar, Ravendra kumar and Om Prakash (2019). The Impact of
Chemical Fertilizers on our Environment and Ecosystem.

Greidinger. Sym. on Fertilization and the Environment. (J.J. Mortwedt and A. Shaviv, Eds.).
Technion, Haifa, Israel, 1997.